Water for Elephants

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

Though he may not speak of them, the memories still dwell inside Jacob Jankowski's ninety-something-year-old mind. Memories of himself as a young man, tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. Memories of a world filled with freaks and clowns, with wonder and pain and anger and passion; a world with its own narrow, irrational rules, its own way of life, and its ownway of death. The world of the circus: to Jacob it was both salvation and a living hell.

Jacob was there because his luck had run out—orphaned and penniless, he had no direction until he landed on this locomotive "ship of fools." It was the early part of the Great Depression, and everyone in this third-rate circus was lucky to have any job at all. Marlena, the star of the equestrian act, was there because she fell in love with the wrong man, a handsome circus boss with a wide mean streak. And Rosie the elephant was there because she was the great gray hope, the new act that was going to be the salvation of the circus; the only problem was, Rosie didn't have an act—in fact, she couldn't even follow instructions. The bond that grew among this unlikely trio was one of love and trust, and ultimately, it was their only hope for survival.

Surprising, poignant, and funny, Water for Elephants is that rare novel with a story so engrossing, one is reluctant to put it down; with characters so engaging, they continue to live long after the last page has been turned; with a world built of wonder, a world so real, one starts to breathe its air.

Synopsis

As a young man, Jacob Jankowski was tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. It was the early part of the Great Depression, and for Jacob the circus world was both his salvation and a living hell. A veterinary student just shy of a degree, he was put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie. It was there that he met Marlena, the beautiful equestrian star married to August, the charismatic but twisted animal trainer. And he met Rosie, an untrainable elephant who was the great gray hope for this third-rate traveling show. The bond that grew among this unlikely trio was ultimately their only hope for survival.

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What Our Readers Are Saying

Average customer rating 1 (1 comments)

Water for Elephants was the most sentimental garbage I have read in years. If you do by chance read this abominable novel, people might tell you that the ending will redeem the cliched plot and atrocious diction, but (alas!) this is not true. Given the hype, I expected a less stereotypical main character and a more interesting account of the grotesque quotidian. A circus is after all a fascination with the improbable and the outlandish with a hint of macabre. It would have been interesting for Gruen to further explore the sociological desire to indulge in such entertainment. Dreams and fairy tales also have these chilling fascinations with the beautiful and the bizarre, and the novel begs for deeper psychological exploration of why we are drawn to them.
Sorely, the novel barely wades into the deeper pool of thought as these passionately flat characters take the fast-train through a plot-driven melodrama where Jacob will inevitably scream, "Marlena!" at least three or four dozen times to prove his unfounded love. Too often Gruen fell into the habit of over-telling which left no mystery to the characters and no vitality. If you like those kind of spoon-fed stories, enjoy. Otherwise, watch the movie and skip to the next book on your list.
[End diatribe]